


honey I just wanna let the sun in

by beverlymarshian



Series: route 93 [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26574484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beverlymarshian/pseuds/beverlymarshian
Summary: Richie absolutely knew that admitting he couldn't remember the last time he took Holly in for a service would make Eddie's face turn red and trigger a rant that lasted long after they were parked in his driveway on this fine Thursday evening, but it was well worth the scolding.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: route 93 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932856
Comments: 9
Kudos: 169





	honey I just wanna let the sun in

**Author's Note:**

> this is a tiny little route 93 coda that is absolutely non-essential but was written for my dear friend holly ([@stillfeelawake](https://twitter.com/stillfeelaawake)) as a little birthday gift. pls wish her a happy birthday!!!

September in Arizona, much like August in Arizona, is a scorching affair—cloudless days as far as the eyes can see, blazing sun hanging in the sky, dry, dead grass crunching underfoot as Richie settles down onto the lawn. The grass has seen better days, days before it was battered with watering restrictions, before it grew brittle and straw-like. It prickles at his skin through his linen shorts when he crosses his legs to sit down.

Evening is slowly falling over the sky, endless blues giving way to burnt orange, dusty purples, buttery yellows as the sun ducks below the horizon. He can see the Phoenix skyline pressed back against the sky, rocky silhouettes. Richie stretches his legs out, heels digging into the grass, shaking the travel from his limbs. Los Angeles to Phoenix is a longer drive than from Vegas, but no less impressive, no less stunning in its long desert stretches, in its foliage, in the memories that can be made over the centre console of a little red Toyota Echo rolling down the highway.

It had been a peaceful drive until they hit city limits and passed a mechanic's, all lit up with red and yellow neon lighting, promising they always accept walk-ins. Eddie only glanced at the shop for a moment before asking if Richie has a usual place for Holly's service or if he would like Eddie to make him an appointment with his guy.

Richie absolutely knew that admitting he couldn't remember the last time he took Holly in for a service would make Eddie's face turn red and trigger a rant that lasted long after they were parked in his driveway on this fine Thursday evening, but it was well worth the scolding.

They rarely take Holly across the desert, not now that they have something fuel efficient and family-sized. Eddie can be talked into letting Richie drive on the off day, when work runs him ragged and he spends the drive alternating between rapid-fire phone calls and dozing off against the window, leaving greasy sunscreen forehead prints against the glass. Eddie maintained, as they rounded the corner into the little neighbourhood of mismatched bungalows that they call  _ home  _ on weekends, he would not have let Richie drive across the desert if he knew he couldn't remember the last time his oil was changed.

Normally such a rant would inspire mild shame and profound amusement in Richie, and it does, but in the minutes between Richie turning the engine off in the driveway and them dropping their weekend bags inside the front door, Eddie reached the conclusion that he would simply have to service Richie's car himself, right here in their driveway, under the setting sun.

Eddie says this like it's some kind of punishment when it is quickly becoming apparent that neglecting his car maintenance is and will always be the best choice Richie has made in his life. It certainly was last summer.

Evening folding over the city doesn't shroud them in cold, instead taking the heat from suffocating to simmering. The warmth seeps into his skin, warming the bare parts, making the back of his shirt stick to his neck. The band on his ring finger burns hot under the setting sun like a brand against his skin. The the back of his neck peels a little from a week-old sunburn. Everything feels a little bit right.

When Eddie exits the garage, a kit in hand and several bottles of various car fluids balanced precariously under his elbow, Richie reconsiders his prior assessment that there was nothing punishing about this. He may have miscalculated, lost under the flurry of Eddie's attention and scrutiny, exactly how torturous it would be to watch him work on Richie's car.

He has stripped down to shorts that cling tight to his legs, a wide-armed tank top that can really hardly count as a shirt, not with the long sliver of Eddie's side it shows, not with how when he leans over Richie gets a peek of his toned torso, the curve of his pecs, dusty pink nipples, before Eddie stands back up. When he does, he  _ winks _ at Richie. Evil, pure evil, his fiancé. He'll never quite get tired of calling him that, he thinks, at least not until he can call him  _ husband _ .

He loves Eddie so much that moments like these—just the two of them, with nothing but the sounds of a neighbourhood winding down for the evening and the heat of the late summer sun beating down on them for ambience—are almost too much to breathe through. It's been a year, only a year with someone he swears he's known in every life he's ever lived, someone he knows he has loved before and would love again, but most of all, someone he has here, right now, with enough love to fill his chest til it bursts and fill it again.

"Not even an oil change?" Eddie asks, sneakers crunching on the grass in front of Richie for a moment before he reaches Holly's hood.

"Nope!" Richie says cheerily, and Eddie makes a face too disgusted to quite call a frown. Richie flashes a grin back and leans back on the grass, elbows digging into the dirt, so he can watch.

"You make me fucking insane."

"Don't worry baby, I know," Richie purrs. The look he gets this time is exasperated, a little squiggle forming between Eddie's brows as he tries to contain the fondness that so often accompanies annoyance.

"I called Lee, he says he can take a look at her on Sunday. We can drop Holly off in the morning and do something in this city with Gabby."

Richie hums, shifting his position until he barely notices the scrape of the grass on his skin. "What are you doing then? Showing off?"

"You like it."

"My little grease monkey," he hollers, too loud, the two of them always a little too loud together.

Eddie whips his head around from where he's folded into the driver's side to pop the hood. "Call me little again and I'll kick your ass."

"Is that supposed to discourage me?"

"No."

Eddie raises the hood, fingers curled over chipped red paint that Richie resolutely refuses to replace, not because the paint job costs more than the car is worth.  _ Which it does _ , Eddie reminds him, intentionally peeling bits off to reveal the matte silver body of the car, trying to get on Richie's nerves like Richie doesn't find every single one of Eddie's eccentricities terribly charming.

No, Richie insists, the chips in the paint and the coffee stains on the seats and the dents in the side and the scratches over the wheel from that time he backed into the pillar in Stan and Patty's driveway, all of these are little bits of personality she has acquired over their time together, like his own scars and wrinkles and the bits of grey that spring out from his head, from his chin. They're like the callouses on Eddie's hands and how they feel when slotted between Richie's. Eddie stopped asking him to get her repainted, but never quite fails to peel a little more of her paint off each time he's near her.

"I'm going to do your filters, your wipers, clean your fucking battery because there's enough acid crusted on here that I don't know how the fuck she turns on, your  _ brake pads _ ," he says, this one pointed, glaring at Richie and bringing his hand down in a chopping motion, like he does when someone at work fucks up on a file or when he's gotten all the way home with the wrong coffee order. "And your fluids. All of them."

"Would like to hear more about the fluids," Richie tries, waggling his eyebrows and licking his lips, an exaggerated suggestiveness that gets the exact sort of annoyed glare he wanted.

"Oil. Brake. Radiator. Transmission. Coolant. Want me to keep going?"

"Yeah, come on, get to the good stuff."

"I'm even replacing your power steering fluid."

"That's what I'm talking about. Love when you power steer me," Richie says, fanning himself with his hand. Eddie fails to hide a little giggle at that and it makes Richie's chest feel so tight he lies back down on the grass so he doesn't have to look straight at him.

He spent a lot of time thinking that Eddie could see it, could see in every glance from the moment they met how Richie felt, could read everything on his face. Richie used to worry, in their first few months together, that Eddie would look him in the eyes and see that every bit of Richie's heart was his and change his mind. He's not sure he would have begrudged him that. He got better at meeting his eyes and was startled to find that Eddie stares back at him the same way.

There's beauty in being on the same page, Richie thinks. It leaves a little room for the rest of their lives to tick along.

He watches as the sunset-streaked sky gives way to inky darkness, the way their front light comes on just as it starts to get difficult to see. He can hear Eddie working, humming a tune Richie can't quite place. He must know it—Eddie can hardly name a song Richie didn't play for him. It sounds like something off their cleaning playlist, or maybe the playing Richie made him for solo drives, filled with upbeat poppy love songs that Eddie pretends he doesn't listen to every time he crosses state lines on his own.

When he pulls himself upright again, dry cracked skin of his elbows fighting for purchase on the brittle grass, Eddie is bent low over the car, a rag in his hand, scrubbing at some engine component Richie wouldn't be able to identify with a gun to his head. His mouth hangs open, soft puffs of breath as he works, tongue caught between his teeth. All his attention is on the car, the engine beneath his hands. He treats everything with so much care, even Holly, even a car he wishes daily that Richie would lay to rest. There's a gentleness to him that feels like a secret, something held between him and Gabby and now Holly, a truth tiny but inescapable—Eddie Kaspbrak has a heart of gold he will share with anyone who has earned it.

Richie's focus drifts from his gaze to his cheek, smudged with a grease so black the night sky would envy it. The grease marks his cheek, his neck, his hands, motor oil crawling up his arms, over the curve of his elbow. He's never afraid to get dirty, not after a childhood of  _ clean clean clean _ . Now Eddie treats mess with a sort of reverence. He plays in the yard with Gabby and has flour fights in the kitchen with Richie and roots around in engines with his full body under the hood of a car like he wants to be covered in it.

Richie pulls himself off the grass, now that their bodies are illuminated in the low light of their porch, now that Eddie digs around in the engine with his phone tucked into the waistband of his pants, flashlight bathing the engine in light. Eddie barely glances his way, still scrubbing at a stubborn spot of battery acid when Richie steps behind him.

He doesn't stop when Richie slips his hands into the gaps in the shirt, running his fingers along his sides, but he lets out a soft sound, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, and presses back against Richie, bodies fitting together easily. When he straightens back up, he leans back against Richie's chest while he works a fresh rag over his hands, scrubbing the grease from the dips of his knuckles, the lines on his palm.

Richie presses his face into the curve of his neck, just breathing there for a moment. Eddie's skin smells of exhaust, motor oil, chemicals, the vanilla air freshener hooked over Holly's rearview mirror, the linger scent of his cologne from that morning when he went to work. Richie closes his eyes and breathes him in and they could be anywhere in the world, on any highway or in any driveway or on any beach under the sun, but they're here.

“I’m almost done. Just the brake pads left," Eddie says, just as Richie starts to kiss along his neck, just light, fluttering touches.

"Okay," he murmurs against his skin. He's not trying to stop him, not really, but it's hard to keep his hands to himself when Eddie's like this, when his skin tastes like salty sweat and sunscreen, when every kiss makes him ease back against Richie's body.

"Distracting," Eddie accuses, but tilts his neck to the side, leaning further against Richie's torso as his hands trail up his sides.

"Sorry," Richie says, not managing to feign an apologetic tone, not when he can feel Eddie's pulse under his lips, not when he bites down with just a whisper of pressure and Eddie drops the cloth he's holding, hands still covered in grease. "I can stop."

"Didn't say that."

The press of his mouth turns from soft to wanting, open-mouthed against Eddie's neck, along his throat, over his jaw. Eddie leans further back against him until every spot they touch is slick with sweat or grease and sticky with hours-old sunscreen. It feels less like they're burning, the places where they touch, and more like their bodies are easing together, two people swaying in the light September breeze.

Richie kisses his neck until their bodies melt together, until he can't tell where Eddie's skin ends and his lips begin, until his arms are wrapped around Eddie's stomach and the heat of their skin runs hotter than the evening sky. He doesn't notice how blurry the lines between their bodies has become until Eddie pulls away, just long enough to turn around. His pupils are blown wide, gaze focussed and heavy on Richie. A soft tinge of pink flutters high over his cheeks, his neck. He smiles.

"Maybe the brake pads can wait," Eddie says, almost breathless.

"Can they?"

When Eddie smiles at him this time, something open and bright, Richie thinks of chipped red paint and condensation on water bottles and coconut sunscreen and long, sunny nights together. He thinks of how bright Eddie's eyes are even as the evening settles over them, the deep brown inset against the whites of his eyes, how they shine and leap with every bit of light left in the sky, how they fix Richie with attention that feels nothing shy of adoration. He thinks of long drives with skin sticking to hot leather seats, windows rolled down and wind whipping through their hair.

He thinks of the tune Eddie was humming and he places it now, he can hear it pouring out their car windows last August, can remember the moment they met. It felt a little like destiny then, like they were pulled together in that moment, like they have been pulled together every moment since then, like Eddie pulls him close now. And Richie knows, in theory, there's a world beyond the two of them, a world beyond their home and their car and their daughter, a world beyond the life they've built together, but he doesn't much care for it.

“We made it this far,” Eddie says, and leans up to kiss him until stars hang in the sky and mosquitos nip at their ankles.

And so they had.

**Author's Note:**

> title from let the sun in by wallows. you know where to find me [@beverlymarshian](https://twitter.com/beverlymarshian)


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